1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of computing devices and more particularly in the field of protecting computing devices from worm or hacker attacks.
2. Background
Computing devices such as servers and desktops are often connected to local area networks, providing connectivity both to other individual computing devices on the network and to other networks or to the Internet. While such connectivity provides benefits in terms of the sharing of information and access to resources, it also makes each computing device vulnerable to attacks through the network by worms and hackers.
A worm attack is carried out by a form of virus software capable of propagating itself over a local area network by locating and exploiting vulnerable operating systems and applications on individual computing devices resident on the network. A hacker attack is similar except that it is usually a human operator directing the attack instead of software. In either case, the attack is propagated through the local area network.
Worm or hacker attacks may be detected by a plurality of methods. An example of such a method is a “honey pot,” wherein a vulnerable device is intentionally located on the network to attract attacks and detect them. The capability to notify computing devices on a network of an attack also exists, either through intervention of the network administrator or by an automated notification system. After such a notification is received by an individual computing device on a local area network, it would be desirable to have a method wherein said device could automatically, without intervention of network operations, respond to the attack by taking actions which at least reduce the effects of the worm or hacker attack.